"Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks." - Mr. Bachus, (R - AL), the next chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Alabama Republican Spencer Bachus, the incoming chairman of the House banking committee, suggested Congress and federal regulators should play a subservient role with banks.

“In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks,” Bachus told The Birmingham News in an interview.

The Republican leadership last week designated Bachus the next chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, which is tasked with overseeing banks, financial markets, housing and consumer credit.

Democrats characterized the remark as a Freudian slip, nicknaming the Alabaman “Big Bank Bachus” and claiming the new Republican-controlled House will put the interests of financial institutions ahead of the American public.

“Congressman Spencer ‘Big Bank’ Bachus has given Americans a startlingly honest answer about the House Republican agenda – do whatever is good for the big banks and Wall Street special interests, rather than what’s good for hardworking Americans,” said Jesse Ferguson, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The congressman from Alabama’s 6th district has throughout his 18-year House career raised millions from financial interests, including over $1 million from commercial banks alone, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

He has received over $800,000 from the real estate industry, $700,000 from securities and investment firms, and $415,000 from credit companies — all of which he will have extraordinary influence over as banking committee chair.

Willem Buiter, London School of Economics prof and former Bank of England and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development official has been saying for some time that the Fed suffers from “cognitive regulatory capture” and has been far too responsive to the needs of Wall Street:

“The Fed listens to Wall Street and believes what it hears,” Buiter said yesterday in a paper presented to the Fed’s conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “This distortion into a partial and often highly distorted perception of reality is unhealthy and dangerous.” (Source)

What an astounding feat to train a nation’s journalist class to despise above all else those who shine a light on what the most powerful factions do in the dark and who expose their corruption and deceit, and to have journalists — of all people — lead the way in calling for the head of anyone who exposes the secrets of the powerful. Most ruling classes — from all eras and all cultures — could only fantasize about having a journalist class that thinks that way